And that's it. The essence of Kerouac is a love of life, existence, and the people who are mad to live:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"."On The Road

Kerouac was a devoted Roman Catholic despite his foray into Buddhism, and he found a role model in Boston's famous Ted Williams. He was a man who championed the average Joe; he never would have imagined his writings would become part of the foundation for political critique. Kerouac rebuked Ginsberg's claim that he wrote On The Road while motivated by Benzedrine, and accounts from close friends claimed he downed cup after cup of coffee instead. He did write in almost explosive outbursts, but his meticulous note-taking and cataloguing while traveling produced massive quantities of journals and passages he would compile into a text when he slowed for a week or two to pull his thoughts, and notes, together into products like On The Road. Kerouac's myth has become his legend. There is much more, or maybe you could say less, to the man we think started the Beat.

Claiming Kerouac as the father of a generation, or maybe even to consider him a Beat, is to do his legacy injustice. What he did was contagiously describe the feeling of free-movement through a world that has so much more to offer than can be photographed in a lifetime. Kerouac knew this, and it drove him to wanderlust. He couldn't sit still for long enough to claim anywhere "home." Maybe that's really what killed him?